Course & Syllabus Guidelines

ENG 1131 — Writing Through Media

Purpose

This course originated as an extension of “writing about literature” to entertainment and popular culture media (cinema, television, music, video games, pop literature, comics, magazines, zines, and the like). One difference from 1102 besides the object of study is the method of study: writing through media. Students not only analyze and interpret media works but also use “creative” forms and practices to explore the production of meaning. 1131 with its overview of pop media is distinguished from 1145 special topics and 2300 film analysis.

Goal

The goal of the course is to introduce students to the transition underway
between literacy and post-literacy (electracy) in contemporary culture.
This shift is approached through its rhetorical implications, with the
students as makers (and not just consumers) of new media effects. Hence
this course is best taught in a computer classroom, in the
context of which its more “writerly“ assignments seem less experimental
than they do in a conventional setting. At the same time, the course is
adaptable to the conventional classroom.

Outcome

While there is no one best way to teach 1131, there are certain things that
students should know as a result of taking the course.

The basic modes of organizing information that underlie and make
coherent the apparent diversity of popular media: narrative (enigma),
argument (enthymeme), image (trope). The desired understanding of
transition from one apparatus or technological paradigm to another is
achieved by comparing the way each of these modes manifests itself in print
and (tape).

The first level of knowledge of these modes is the sort found in
handbooks introducing the principles of story, argument, poem, photograph.
Good sources include not only interpretive guides, but authoring guides.
The ambiguity of “image” – referring to both word and picture – is made an
explicit part of the course.

The theoretical background for the method is based primarily on
Roland Barthes, including his semiotic readings of images as well as of
stories, his invention of the five codes of narrative, and his exploration
of third meanings in photography. Since 1131 is a general education
course, original theoretical texts should be assigned sparingly. Students
should become familiar with the basic principles of semiotics
(sign-signifier/signified etc), the five codes introduced in S/Z, and third
meanings. In general, the point is to increase “functional electracy” by
pairing visual culture with print culture.

Aesthetic authoring: while 1131 draws upon the analytical
skills of literacy, it also asks students to compose stories and tropes in
both words and pictures.

Web: basic experience with all the authoring tools available for web design.

Curriculum (suggestions, not requirements)

A useful template for achieving the outcomes described above divides the
semester into 4 segments, one for each of the basic modes, with a final
section for integration or experimentation. Each segment includes readings
and examples of the mode in both text and tape versions, with web examples
as hybrid supplements.

Narrative: basic organizing element = enigma (viz Barthes’
Hermeneutic code). Compare a Holmes story in print and on tape. Note the
abductive logic structuring both, then use this logic pedagogically for the
remaining sections of the course, as the problem-solving strategy for the
course projects and assignments. How does a picture tell a story
(photography)?

Synthesis: in practice there are no pure examples of the 3
modes – they are nearly always found together, but with one dominant and the
others subordinate. Citizen Kane displays an amazing balance among the
three: a narrative told as a documentary with both modes inflected by
image-structured cinematography.

Assignments

Readings include both works about the forms and examples of them.
Principles may be demonstrated with simple examples as well as complex
masterpieces. Any work the students are asked to produce should be
supported with models or relays for emulation and extrapolation. Exercises
may be gathered under and motivated by a semester-long project. A more
analytical approach to the curriculum might be based on “adaptation” of a
key example to the medium of the web, to explore how the web draws on
certain features of both the page and the screen. A more aesthetic
approach to web hybridity is to design the 4 projects so that they
accumulate into an intellectual self-portrait.